²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!^(A)

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. ^(B)

The Cure for Anxiety

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you:^(C) Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?^{(D) 26} Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?^(E)

Treasure in Clay Jars

⁷ Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power^(A) may be from God and not from us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; ⁹ we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry the death of Jesus^(B) in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. ¹¹ For we who live are always being given over to death^(C) for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. ¹³ And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke,^[a](D) we also believe, and therefore speak. ¹⁴ For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus^(E) and present us with you. ¹⁵ Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving^(F) to increase to the glory of God.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not give up.^(G) Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person^(H) is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our momentary light affliction^(I) is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.^{(J) 18} So we do not focus on what is seen,^(K) but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Christian Suffering

¹² Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you.^{(A) 13} Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ,^(B) so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.^{(C) 14} If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ,^(D) you are blessed, because the Spirit^(E) of glory and of God^[a] rests on you. ¹⁵ Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler.^{[b] 16} But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.^{[c] 17} For the time has come for judgment^(F) to begin with God’s household,^(G) and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?

¹⁹ So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves^(I) to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.